Allitt
by Ranya Ni
Summary: Allitt McGarden is a normal girl. Or she would be if everyone didn't think she was a boy! Forced to spend the summer with her Uncle up North, she is about to get a sample of what trouble really taste like when the undead take a keen interest in the scr
1. Bus ride

1

The bus ride had been bumpy for the last day and half; in the last couple of hours it had gotten ridiculous.

_My butt's spent more time off the seat than on it,_ Allitt thought, irritated. And every time she was jolted into the air, she practically fell onto the creepy old guy next to her. _Why'd I have to come up here this summer anyway?_ All her friends had been so jealous. _"You get to see the_ Wall?"

"I don't care about the stupid Wall," Allitt muttered.

"And why not?" said the creepy old guy, who thought he was her friend. "A pretty girl like you should see as much of the world as she can before she settles down. It'll be soon, I'll bet."

Allitt scrunched down in her seat and scowled. "I'm only fourteen," she mumbled. _He thought I was a boy when he first saw me!_

_Okay, so everyone thinks I'm a boy._ She scowled harder. _Stupid everyone._

The creepy old guy looked like he was going to say something else, so Allitt turned and stared out the window.

It was actually kind of pretty up here. Green rolling hills and stuff. Blue sky, fluffy white clouds. It might not be so bad if she could find some people that weren't old.

She hoped Uncle Edgar wasn't mean, or stupid, or creepy. Last night she'd had a dream that she got off the bus, and ran straight into the creepy old guy, who'd turned out to be her uncle. She shuddered. All she really knew about him was what her mother had said—that he was "kind if odd"—and what he'd looked like ten years ago when he'd visited and her mother had taken pictures. In the pictures, he had a bushy brown beard, and in one of his letters to her mother he'd said that he hadn't shaved it off yet. He also had twinkling brown eyes and crazy hair. He _looked_ nice. _Please let him be nice. _She had to spend three months with him. He had to be nice.

She spent a few more minutes focused determinedly on the window, to be sure that the creepy old guy got the message, and so she got to see the first houses and stuff as the bus moved out of _nowhere_ into _nowhere with a couple hundred people._ Pretty soon, they were in the middle of the town that her uncle lived in.

It was really small.

The bus stopped in the center of town, which was an open space with a bunch of cobblestones and a fountain in the middle. She bet that if you climbed up on the statue in the fountain, you'd be able to see past the edges of this place.

Really, really small.

Of course she was the only person getting off here. She squeezed past the creepy old guy, who didn't move out of the way, just chuckled at her and winked as she dragged her luggage down the aisle. _Ew._

She got out of the bus, dropped her bags next to the fountain and looked around the square. No bushy-bearded Uncle Edgar in sight. She sat down on the edge of the fountain.

_What the heck am I going to do around here?_

Well, she could get into shape, definitely. Last year, she'd been pathetic. Only won _one_ event. One! And no records at all.

_And next year, records'll be even harder to set, because of stupid Emily Eve. _ She scowled. Emily Eve was the fastest runner the school had ever seen. She was a year older than Allitt, and she's set five records in the past year. _Five!_ And three more the year before that. _Faster than Emily Eve. I'll be faster than Emily Eve by the end of the summer. _ There. A goal. A goal was good; even if there was nothing else to do and Uncle Edgar was stupid and mean, she'd have something to work for. Satisfied, she looked around.

A man was standing about ten feet away, looking off into the distance. He had brown hair and a beard, but she couldn't see his features very well, and the hair and beard were a lot tamer than the ones in the pictures. He was tapping his foot.

He looked kind of anxious.

_Well... if he isn't Uncle Edgar, this town is dinky enough that he should know who he is._ She stood up and walked over to the man, who turned around and looked at her—he looked like the pictures, all right. "Excuse me," she started, and just to be sure, "I'm looking for my Uncle Edgar. He lives here..."

The man blinked. "Allitt! I'm terribly sorry. I thought—I mean, I didn't recognize you. I'm your Uncle Edgar."

Allitt scowled. _He thought I was a_ boy. _Damn it... _"Hi," she said flatly.

"I'm so sorry. But no harm done by my stupidity this time, thank goodness. Let's get your stuff and go back to my house."

Allitt scowled her way through town, which was really scarily small, while Uncle Edgar told her about the people who lived here. "...and Mrs. Hudson owns the general store, there—don't cross her, or your apples will be bruised and your flour bag too light for months. Believe me, I know. Mr. Hudson's the barber, he works way over there—if you ask me, he wants to be as far away from Mrs. Hudson as possible during the day..."

By the time they got to Uncle Edgar's house, which was actually kind of nice-looking, the scowl was almost gone. Edgar opened the door, which apparently hadn't been locked, and gave her a graceful bow. "After you, m'lady. Make yourself comfortable."

Inside, it was still nice-looking, and Allitt mentally rolled her eyes at her mom, who kept on saying worried things about _bachelors_ and the _state_ of the houses they kept, and did Edgar even know how to hold a _broom_, or cook, or anything...

_Looks pretty clean. And the kitchen isn't abandoned. Mom's wrong again._

"This'll be your room, kiddo." Edgar was slouching casually in a doorway, smiling. "If you hate anything I've got in it now, just tell me and I'll stick it in the attic until you leave. If you're going to here for months, you've got a right to say what your room'll look like."

Allitt brightened a little. _This really doesn't seem like it'll be too bad after all. _The room was kind of nice, light blue and white, but not _frilly_. Two big windows, _big_ bed...

She pointed. "That picture's really ugly."

Edgar chuckled. "You don't mince words, do you?" He walked over and looked at it. "To tell the truth, I've always thought it was ugly too, but my mother gave it to me, and I wouldn't have dared to take it down while she was alive and visiting me regularly. After that, I just got used to it."

Allitt hesitated. "If you want to leave it up—"

"No, no. It's your room. And like you said, it's an ugly picture. I'll just stick it in the attic, and after a week I'll have forgotten I put it there. Now, I'll leave you to unpack, and go get dinner started." He grinned quickly and left the room, grabbing the picture on his way out.

Allitt sat down on the bed; it bounced a little. She smiled. _This seems like it'll be fun, maybe._

At dinner, she listened to Uncle Edgar talk about his odd-and-ends shop, as he called it, where he kept, "oh, machine parts and penny whistles and foreign foods and antique toys...sooner or later everyone turns up there looking for something, and usually I've either got it or I know where to get one." He took a bite of chicken. "You can help out there this summer, if you want, and I'll pay you same as I would any other worker."

Allitt wrinkled her nose. "Maybe." She didn't really want to sell things to people she didn't know, but if there wasn't anything else to do..."What sort of things can you do around here?"

Edgar frowned. "Well, I'm not sure, for someone your age. There are a few other children around, and there's plenty of countryside to explore and run around in, most of the kids I know have chores and lessons all the time, or so they complain. I'll ask around, and I'll see if I have anything at the shop that you could use to amuse yourself. I know I have games."

Allitt stirred the mashed potatoes with her fork and bit her lip. _Games_ sounded a bit too...kiddy. Her mother was always telling her to _go play_, which was something she'd outgrown _years_ ago...well _a_ year, anyway. Uncle Edgar didn't think that she wanted something to _play_ with, did he? And from what he'd said, the amusement level here was pretty low. What was she going to do here all summer? Especially if the other kids didn't like her.

She wouldn't mind spending time with Uncle Edgar, she didn't think. But he'd be working a lot, probably.

_You have a goal_, she reminded herself. _You're going to be the fastest runner in the school next year, and you'll have to spend a lot of time training for that. When Uncle Edgar's working, you can run._

Well, that was true. Hopefully the summer wouldn't be too boring. And even if it was, she'd be in really good shape by the time it was over.


	2. Life and Death

* * *

2

He hadn't had a name for a long, long time. He hadn't had a body for longer than that, because even when he'd been a spirit, the Abhorsen-damn-him had been able to bind him with his name. And before the, the Abhorsen-damn-her had bound him with the same name, but now he couldn't remember what it was.

Bound, he'd been bound for a long time. So long, longer than he could give a number to. He remembered times before the Seventh Gate, before the Fifth Gate, before he'd been chained, and chained again, but they were distant and dim, almost as dim as the depths of Death, the only existence he'd known for—for so long. Life, Life was something he'd been forgetting by pieces, holding greedily on to every piece of memory he could search out, crying in anguish when they slipped away. As they would, inevitably, and he would sit in the water of Death and mourn what he knew, _knew_, had been a picture of something in Life that now he _couldn't remember._ Until all the pictures were gone, all the words were gone, and all he could remember was that Life was something he wanted, wanted, wanted more desperately than anything . Than everything. Until there was nothing in his broken, rotting mind but how much he wanted it. He couldn't even remember the_ word_, Life, but he yearned toward it, and he knew in which direction it lay, and he strained toward it with all of his being.

But he slipped back. And despaired.

It wasn't _right_, that he should be chained in the waters of Death, chained in the darkness and the fire and the cold and the despair, when so many walked in Life. And slowly, over the centuries in Death, the yearning and despair turned to anger. Anger at the Aborsen-damn-him, and the Aborsen-damn-her, who had sent him here and denied him the sweet, full presence that was Life. Anger at Death, around him and unceasing and his prison for too long. Anger, and rage.

The rage grew, until the _want_ for Life was all caught up in hating the Aborsen, until he almost forgot the impression, the emotion that was not even a picture, that was Life as it existed in his mind. Because he hated so much, that faint memory he had of the bells ringing in his ears, and the figure behind them, pale hands clutching silver metal and sending him back into despair. After a time, he couldn't even distinguish between the times that it happened, between the male figure and the female, just the memory of the tall figure, the pale hands on bells, and the water of Death washing around him as he was bound. And hate, endless, boundless hate.

So when the Aborsen came walking, walking so far, even to the Eighth Precinct and beyond, he didn't think of anything beyond that hate, and rage, and the ways he could cause pain to this creature here. It had been even longer by this time, and he couldn't recall the title, he couldn't even remember what the figure had done to him, but the pale skin and the black hair and the bells—oh, yes. This was wrong, this had hurt him. Somehow.

And so he attached.

And the Aborsen went through the Eighth Gate, and so did he, mind set only on his goal, hurt.

And he was in the Ninth Precinct.

And he looked up.

And he rose, and rose, and rose, rose into the air wailing in hate and grief, and a remnant of that long-ago want, that once had encompassed his entire being.

But something had happened. Because here he was, occupying a body that was positive, certain, with every fiber of its weak and mortal mind, that it lived. That Life was the thing surrounding it.

So how had he gotten here?

He lived in a mortal's body, in Life, and his memory was becoming stronger, helped by the memory of the mortal he inhabited. He remembered Death, and he remembered the Abhorsens'—the people, and the title, and the bells and what they were for. He couldn't yet remember what he had been and done when he had occupied Life last.

And he still couldn't remember his name, which was tiresome. He wanted to remember his name.

* * *


End file.
